Think Outside Inc., creator of the award-winning Stowaway Portable Keyboards for handheld devices, announced on November 1 the availability of its Stowaway Travel Mouse, the world's first portable Bluetooth mouse, for smart phones, PDAs and notebooks. This cutting edge mouse supports Pocket Word, Excel, Messaging & other PPC applications and includes "right click" and "scroll wheel" features for easy navigation.

"The Stowaway Travel Mouse is the world's first mouse for PDAs, smart phones and computers" said Greg van den Dries, President and COO. "Mobile devices are increasingly being used as replacements for desktops and notebooks and yet navigation and input methods on these devices remain challenging for heavy users."
"While we have received many accolades and awards over the years for providing the best portable keyboards in the industry", van den Dries continued, "We felt that we were only providing half of the solution. With a mouse, a user can easily navigate applications and menus on a mobile device just as they would on a desktop."
Industry analysts predict that the smart phone market is poised for phenomenal growth. Both IDC and Dataquest project that 2004 smart phone sales will double 2003 sales and many analysts expect this doubling sales trend to continue until at least 2007.

"Since the earliest days of the PC, people have come to expect a mouse when they sit in front of a keyboard and computer, yet in today's world of handhelds and smart phones, we aren't given option of using a mouse for navigation," said Ed Hardy, Editor-in-Chief of Brighthand, a leading online news source for mobile communication technology. He goes on to say that "Instead of forcing users to change their habits, we just have to give them the ability to use a tool that they already know how to use - the mouse."

The Stowaway Travel Mouse supports the following Bluetooth-enabled smart phones, PDA's and computers:

Pocket PC Phone Editions: Xda II series from O2, i-mate, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Qtek, Orange and other leading wireless service providers.

The Stowaway Travel Mouse will be available in mid-November through leading retailers in the US and Europe and should be available for around US$ 79,99. I will try to get my hands on a review sample as soon as possible to follow up my Think Outside Bluetooth reviews which started with the Think Outside Stowaway Universal Bluetooth Keyboard.